THE ASSAMESE. 83 



ing in their course. Unexpectedly, he debouches on a 

 miserable village ; perhaps there may be ten or fifteen 

 huts, or there may be more, with the greater portion 

 uninhabited or in ruins. The people he finds unin- 

 telligent ; they stare at him in wonder ; one-third draw- 

 ing huge limbs after them, affected with elephantises ; no 

 cultivation visible ; but the forest threatening to enclose 

 them in its dark folds. 



The man, if there be an infant in question, is the 

 nurse ; the mother takes the man's place, and does all 

 the labor, and when that is done turns nurse, and the man 

 resorts to his opium cup, or his opium pipe (for opium is 

 drank mixed in water, or smoked as tobacco from a pipe), 

 and then casts himself down on a piece of tree-bark, or a 

 mat, on the damp floor, where he contracts all his diseases. 

 Infants are few. Opium destroys the powers of procrea- 

 tion ; and the greater portion of Assamees go without a 

 child to a premature grave. In the village may be found, 

 perhaps, a score or two of women ; not more, probably, 

 than some four or five grown-up men. There was a 

 village near the Koojoo plantation with only two men and 

 cightmi women. Opium is used in the Tartar country 

 as well as Assam. During life no man is so miserable 

 as the opium-eater. In a few years he becomes a thin, 

 emaciated, miserable wretch, incapable of exertions; and 

 left any time without the use of that fearful drug, 

 he rolls himself on the ground, in the most miserable 

 plight, crying pi teously, " Kane ne ! kane ne !" There 

 is no opium. 



It is among such people that tea in Assam, and the 

 Sin<iphoo, or Tartar country, has been cultivated ; and 

 with such workmen the writer has made teas from two 

 cents up to four cents per Ib. 



